Prior to the pandemic, many of the world’s biggest smartphone OEMs would announce their new flagship devices either at the conference hall itself or at another nearby venue in Barcelona.
However, Samsung - undoubtedly Android’s biggest player - chose to forgo this tradition in 2022 and instead announced the Galaxy S22 at its own event three weeks earlier. While the Korean firm still had a presence at MWC and unveiled some new laptops, the decision to keep the S22 reveal to itself put a dampener on the proceedings.
With Sony also making the decision to pull out in January (in a decision branded as “disappointing” by the organisers), the only major new products announced were from mid-tier OEMs Honor and Realme. With the loss of major announcements, as well as the continuing threat of a deadly disease, came the inevitable reduction in crowd numbers.
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